There was a time not many years ago, Brandon Roy once said in reverie, when he would walk into the Rose Garden and think, "I own this place."

And he was right. Only he could have gone further and included the city. Shoot, even the state.

Back then, Trail Blazers coach Nate McMillan dubbed him "The Closer" because he so often won a game, or put it away, with a timely play.

These days, those games are but a memory. His knees -- the same swollen, decaying and decimated lot that ended his reign in Portland a little more than a year ago -- are now howling in Minnesota. After playing in five games for the Timberwolves, he needed surgery in November. Then came more state-of-the-art treatments. Then came more setbacks.

The Closer, it is clear, doesn't know how to finish this final game.

If he did, Roy would retire Saturday. Here, in Portland, at the Rose Garden, where it all started.

When Minnesota plays the Blazers on Saturday, it will be Roy's first appearance as an NBA opponent at the Rose Garden. And it should be his last.

Deep down, Roy must know his career is over. But he is too stubborn, too proud, to admit it publicly. His knees are gone -- one stage from needing to be replaced, doctors have told him -- but his flair for the dramatic doesn't have to go with them.

Share it with us, Brandon. Don't walk away from the game quietly on a chilly Minneapolis morning in April. Do it in the warmth of the Rose Garden, Rip City style. With a thunderous ovation. With the Section 314 rowdies chanting your name. Feel the love this city still has for you. Let this be your greatest final shot.

"It would be a good story," said Roy's agent, Greg Lawrence. "But it would be a better story for him to go out and play 40 minutes."

If you are like me, it pains me to hear Roy and his camp clinging to this comeback. I wish I could tell you why Roy is hanging on, but he declined an interview request this week.

I did speak with Roy twice this season -- once in November right before the seventh knee surgery of his life -- and again in January in Minneapolis after the Blazers and Timberwolves played.

In November, he said no matter how his story ended, he was proud of himself, and content. He worked his way back to the NBA -- no small feat -- and could rest easy knowing he went out on his terms, not because a doctor recommended he retire.

In January, the Blazers had just beaten the Timberwolves, and Roy was meandering down a hallway in the Target Center, his son Brandon Jr. tugging at his leg, his daughter Mariah wobbling behind, trying to keep pace. His wife, Tiana, and parents were also there. Everyone was all smiles. We exchanged handshakes and maybe 30 words, eight of which still resonate today.

"I'm at peace," Roy said. "I'm in a good place."

It sounds, though, as if Roy is still tormented by voices he said kept him up at night after he was released by the Blazers in December 2011. He said he would lie awake in bed asking himself, "Did I stop too soon?"

Lawrence counts four setbacks this season to Roy's knees. Each time, he says, the 27-year-old has had moments of frustration, when he realizes all the dieting, the weight lifting, the conditioning, the rehabilitation, has put him back to square one: Swollen knees that ache so badly he can't play.

Never, Lawrence says, has the word retirement come up.

"It's either 'Begin rehab, or not,'" Lawrence said. "But not retirement. And each time, he has chosen to do the rehab. If he wanted to stop playing, or say he has had enough, he's had plenty of opportunity to do that. But he keeps saying he wants to try and rehab."

He's not doing it for the money. He has already missed too many games for him to have the second-year in his two-year contract guaranteed. And when the Blazers used the amnesty clause to release Roy, they still had to pay him the $64 million they owed him through 2015.

For much of the season, Roy has either not shown up to the arena, or stayed in the locker room to watch the games. On Thursday in Los Angeles, he told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that Saturday in Portland, he plans to sit behind the Minnesota bench.

The Blazers said they have no plans to honor Roy, other than maybe placing him on the video scoreboard at some point, which is too bad. Not since Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter has there been a more beloved, or important, Blazer.

He wasn't perfect -- he should have welcomed Andre Miller more and tried to make their pairing work instead of pouting and complaining -- and not all was perfect during his era, as McMillan's Roy-dominated offense created some petty jealousies in the locker room.

But more than anyone, Roy resurrected Portland -- the organization and the city -- from the Jail Blazers era. Oftentimes it was with his play -- be it the Rose Garden-record 52-point game against Phoenix, or the more than 40 plays he made in the last 30 seconds that won or sent a game into overtime. And sometimes it was with his character, like his rookie season, when he heard veteran Zach Randolph in the halftime locker room in Los Angeles, berating the team's young guards for allowing the Lakers' Smush Parker to go on a scoring spree near the end of the half. Roy, in the back using the restroom, emerged and confronted Randolph in front of the team, saying that would not be tolerated. The Blazers were one. A team. There would be no finger pointing.

Randolph went quiet. And when the team later filtered out for the second half, Randolph held back and stopped Roy. He apologized. From that moment on, the Blazers were Roy's team.

When he was let go by the Blazers, he talked about wanting to return to the Rose Garden one day and shoot hoops. With nobody around, just him and the rim. He wanted to relive the shots, remember the games, soak in the memories. One final dance with the building.

If Roy allows it, Saturday can be that dance. For him. For the Rose Garden. And for us.